


This late at night the armour cracks

by quandong_crumble



Category: Iron Man: Armored Adventures
Genre: Gen, Roberta's POV, Worry, under 1000 words
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-11-10
Updated: 2014-11-10
Packaged: 2018-02-24 20:27:13
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 560
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2595356
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/quandong_crumble/pseuds/quandong_crumble
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Exhausted from a long day sorting through Howard Stark's assets, Roberta struggles to reassemble her armour and comfort a crying teenager.</p>
            </blockquote>





	This late at night the armour cracks

**Author's Note:**

> I absolutely adored Armoured Adventures and the shenanigans Team Iron Man got up to while trying to save the world and not flunk school. Particularly, though I loved Roberta Rhodes the few times she showed up. She was a tough nut, seemed to balance a demanding career with motherhood, and obviously loved her son very much. She seemed to take the role of “Dad’s lawyer” with Tony rather than trying to mother him, and it worked well for them. So, anyway, I got bit by the inspiration bug thinking about Roberta.
> 
> Set immediately before Tony's first day of school.
> 
> _If you think you've seen this before, you probably saw it on tumblr when it was originally posted in December '13. I'm moving some of my longer/better tumblr fics to AO3._

He’s crying again, Roberta can tell. It’s always almost silent, always in the dead of night. Defences come down when the lights go out and everything that gets pushed aside by day crowds in on the mind until it’s overwhelming and crushing. It’s hard enough as a forty-one year old with an absent husband to worry over. She can’t even begin to put herself in the shoes of a freshly orphaned sixteen year old.

If it were James in there, crying in the night like he did so often as a child, she’d know what to do. She’d go in there with a mug of cocoa and rub his back while he drank it, just sitting with him until the chocolate and the light from the hallway chased the night-time demons away. Tony’s too different, though. He’s a sweet boy, but he’s James’ opposite in too many ways—withdrawn, secretive and sensitive—and she’s just not equipped to deal with this. She doesn’t know how to breach that barrier of being ‘Howard’s lawyer’ and ‘Rhodey’s mom’ and walk into that room and comfort that poor kid, can’t work out how to intrude on his privacy like that.

Howard was a good friend, though they’d tried to keep a professional distance between them, and he was brilliant father but God knows he isolated that poor boy. And now Tony’s here with his closest friend, yes, but with Roberta too, and she’s tried her hardest but she’s too busy trying to make sure even more of Howard’s assets aren’t lost to Stark Industries and Obadiah Stane’s leadership to be there for Tony. She’s working fourteen-hour days at the moment, and cursing Howard Stark for never separating his personal funds from his business. She’s barely had time to grieve herself. And now Tony has to start school in the morning, almost completely without any sort of support network. She’d advised Howard against pulling him out of school back when Tony was only seven and she dreads being right, that Tony’s going to struggle with organised learning, with timetables and peers and a teacher who can’t devote 100% of their attention to him. How’s he going to cope with kids his own age? They can be so cruel at sixteen.

“Mom?” James’ door opens. “It’s like, two in the morning and I can hear you thinking. What’s going on?”

“James,” Roberta starts to say. Her voice cracks and catches a bit and before she’s cleared her throat he’s there, arms open and enfolding her in a warm hug. When did he get so tall? Without her work heels on she can only just rest her chin on his shoulder.

“What’s wrong?” He asks.

“Nothing, baby,” she says. “It’s just been a long day.”

She clings for him for a bit longer. She misses David so much at times like these, so maybe she clings to her son a little too hard. He never seemed to outgrow cuddles from his mom though.

“Go back to bed,” she tells him, rubbing his back one more time before breaking away. “You have school in the morning.”

“Okay,” he says, but he turns towards Tony’s room instead of his own. “Hey mom? It’s gonna be okay.”

Roberta smiles at his retreating back. It _is_ going to be okay. She’ll fight tooth and nail to make sure of that.


End file.
